Quebec’s policy of favouring French-speaking immigrants over others has been like a welcome mat to the thousands of francophone Muslims from countries like Morocco, Algeria and Lebanon who now call Montreal home.
But some believe the Charter of Quebec Values tabled in the National Assembly last week will do just the opposite; its ban on the wearing of religious symbols by public sector workers discouraging not only Muslim immigrants, but others who will see the Charter as a sign of Quebec’s intolerance toward minorities or of an unstable social climate.
According to Statistics Canada’s most recent National Household Survey, more than half (58.8 per cent) of all immigrants who moved to Quebec between 2006 and 2011 spoke French as their first official language. Because French is spoken widely in countries like Morocco, Algeria and Lebanon, where Islam is a prominent religion, Quebec has attracted many thousands of immigrants from these countries.
In fact, Montreal has the second-largest Muslim community of any Canadian city; 221,040 Muslims were living in the census metropolitan area of Montreal in 2011, according to the census.
Jean-François Lisée, the minister responsible for the Montreal region, said recently he believes the charter will eventually be an asset to Quebec’s immigration program, attracting “moderate” members of various religions who want to live in a secular state.
“Immigrants who have been coming here for the past several years have to sign a declaration in which it is written that Quebec is a secular state,” Lisée said last week, when he appeared on an episode of the popular Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle.
“I think there are a lot of people from Maghreb and Lebanon and elsewhere who choose Quebec because it is a secular society. If we send a message that here in Quebec we take secularism seriously, we will have moderate Muslims, moderate Christians, and moderate Sikhs, who say ‘I like my religion a lot at home, but I like a secular state,’ and Quebec is a progressive state that sends that message.”
He acknowledged that the Charter debate is difficult, and that some members of certain religions may feel targeted. But as in France and other countries with similar laws, the Charter will eventually be seen as a “unifying measure”, he said.
“I think it will be a unifying and progressive measure in society ... while we are having the debate, the transition is difficult, but we are in it now, let’s do it and move on,”
Jack Jedwab, executive vice-president of the Canadian Institute for Identities and Migration, said the PQ government is wrong if it believes the charter will make Quebec a more attractive place for immigrants.
“If the government is saying to potential immigrants that the new legislation is going to improve relations between majority and minority communities, they are lying,” Jedwab told The Gazette on Saturday.
“My concern is that people who Quebec is interested in recruiting to come here will see relations between communities getting very unstable, and this could be true beyond just Muslim immigrants. French-speaking (potential) immigrants in general are aware of the level of tension to which this kind of thing gives rise, and they will think twice before coming here.
“People don’t like places where there are restrictions on people’s rights and where there is intolerance toward certain religious minorities. These people do have choices and this kind of instability is not attractive.”
The president of the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec, Gaétan Barrette, added his voice late last week to the chorus of influential Quebecers speaking out against the charter. Barrette called the government’s move “cynical and cavalier.”
He said the FMSQ, which represents 9,000 medical specialists across the province, is adamantly against the ban on religious symbols, “except for elements that touch on the obligation of faces to be uncovered and of any other element that could affect the safety of a patient from a medical point of view.”
He said doctors are also concerned about the upheaval the Charter could cause in hospitals as it affects not only doctors who wear religious symbols, but also nursing staff and other health care employees.